{"id":74631,"date":"2024-07-21T00:03:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T04:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=74631"},"modified":"2024-07-21T00:03:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T04:03:30","slug":"trump-hates-electric-cars-but-he-caused-one-to-be-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=74631","title":{"rendered":"Trump hates electric cars, but he caused one to be made – Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIJING \u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>A decision by the Trump administration to sanction China<\/a>\u2019s Xiaomi Corp in early 2021 was the catalyst for the company\u2019s decision to build its first electric\u00a0car<\/span>, CEO Lei Jun said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Best known for its smartphones and home appliances, Xiaomi\u00a0entered<\/a>\u00a0China\u2019s crowded EV market this year, part of its strategy to diversify its product portfolio.<\/p>\n

Speaking at an annual event in Beijing on Friday, Lei said Xiaomi began to consider making an EV after what he called “an accident,” an announcement in the final days of the Trump administration that put the Chinese company on a U.S. sanction list.<\/p>\n

“I received a phone call from a friend saying that we had been sanctioned. It was like a bolt from the blue,” said Lei, who added that Xiaomi convened an emergency board meeting that day that kicked off its scramble to develop an electric\u00a0car<\/span>.<\/p>\n

“If it weren’t for the huge impact of the unexpected U.S. sanctions, we would not have rashly entered the complex automotive industry,” said Lei, who has developed a celebrity following in China for splashy, live-streamed product reveals.<\/p>\n

Friday’s event, where Lei detailed Xiaomi’s attempt to launch an EV that would lure buyers from Tesla<\/a> and established luxury brands like BMW<\/a>, Audi<\/a> and Mercedes<\/a>, was streamed by more than 1.5 million people on WeChat.<\/p>\n

Xiaomi challenged the 2021 sanctions in federal court and won a reversal of the action that would have restricted U.S. investment in May that year. By that time, Lei said he had launched the development of what became the SU7, a sporty, Porsche<\/a> look-alike EV that starts below $30,000.<\/p>\n

Lei said Xiaomi had turned down an offer from venture capital to fund its early-stage EV operations that would have valued the operation at $10 billion.<\/p>\n

Xiaomi plans to deliver at least 100,000 SU7 EVs this year, with a target of 120,000 sales. This represents a significant increase from earlier this year, when the company initially set its first-year sales target at 76,000 vehicles while determining its production capacity.<\/p>\n

Lei said the company had delivered over 25,000 EVs by the end of June and expected to reach the 100,000-unit target by November.<\/p>\n

“I have to thank the accident three years ago,\u201d he said of the sanctions, which spurred the company’s drive to diversify due to concerns they would harm its smartphone business.<\/p>\n

The SU7 is only available in China. Lei said his target was for Xiaomi to become one of the top five global automakers.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump devoted a portion of his speech accepting the Republican party\u2019s nomination for president on Thursday to the EV industry, saying he would roll back stringent vehicle emissions<\/a> regulations driving a shift to electric\u00a0car<\/span>s.<\/p>\n

Trump also said, if elected in November, he would slap import tariffs of up to 200% on Chinese EVs built in Mexico, although he has said he would support Chinese investment in plants in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING \u2014\u00a0A decision by the Trump administration to sanction China\u2019s Xiaomi Corp in early 2021 was the catalyst for the company\u2019s decision to build its first electric\u00a0car, CEO Lei Jun said on Friday. Best known for its smartphones and home appliances, Xiaomi\u00a0entered\u00a0China\u2019s crowded EV market this year, part of its strategy to diversify its product […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}